Part of running a business in this era of technology is establishing an online presence. This does not only mean having a well-put-together website and being active on social media, which are both a big part of what online marketing means. In order to reach audiences and turn them into customers, you also need to invest in online advertising.
Sometimes, finding the best-suited advertising strategy for your business can be quite daunting, especially given the fact that you have so many options to choose from in the sea of digital marketing. The accessible costs of digital advertising, especially when compared to traditional advertising, may make it tempting for you to what to invest in as many types of ad campaigns as you can find, but keep in mind that they may not all work for your business.
With this being said, let’s explore a few of the options you have, to help you decide which one works best for meeting your company goals.
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Pay-per-click advertising
Remember all the ads you see next to your search results in Google, Bing, or other search engines? Well, that is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. PPC advertising means paying a fixed amount of money to the publisher that runs your ad each time someone clicks on it and gets redirected to your website. Ads appear based on whatever keywords the user is searching for. Despite being one of the oldest forms of online advertising, pay-per-click advertising is still a very effective way to attract potential customers.
One of the downsides of PPC advertising now is that most of the popular keywords started costing quite a lot. For example, a popular keyword, such as “online courses” can end up costing you as much as $100 per click. For small businesses, this may not be the most financially feasible solution.
The key to making PPC ads feasible is to choose longtail keywords instead of short ones. This means that, instead of using “online courses” as your keyword, you may find it much cheaper using something on the lines of “online courses for chemistry”, or whatever it is that your company is providing. Longtail keywords are much more specific and will attract a more niched audience, but this may work to your advantage. Hiring a PPC ad agency with a focus on your niche audience can also help with longtail keyword targets. Take an auto body shop, for example, hiring an automotive PPC company could be in their best favor in this scenario.
Pop-up and pop-under ads
Pop ads came to life sometimes in the ‘90s, and they don’t seem to be going anywhere. In fact, they are quite a popular advertising strategy, being even more effective than banner ads (which we will be discussing in a little while). In terms of click-through rate, pop ads are 6 times more effective than banner ads, and that can make a big difference in the number of visitors that reach your website.
One big advantage of pop advertising, no matter if you are using pop-up or popunder ads, is that it is not as disturbing for the audience as a dozen of flashy ads appearing on one single webpage may be. The ad appears on a separate webpage, so the user is not disrupted from their activity, plus it gives you plenty of screen space to customize it however you desire.
As advertising experts from AdMaven point out, users have developed what is called banner blindness, meaning their brain subconsciously ignores ads that appear on the page of a website. You can call it a sort of defense mechanism if you like. With pop ads, visibility becomes the key advantage, as it gets much harder to ignore a webpage that opens up on its own. This is why pop ads usually convert much better than other ads, having the potential to boost your ROI by as much as 250%.
Email campaigns
Email newsletters are another popular form of digital advertising, plus they are very easy to implement. You simply set up a page on your website, or pun an opt-in form on your homepage, where visitors can sign up to receive emails about what your company’s next projects are. The great advantage of email campaigns is that they can be highly customizable, ensuring each and every one of those signing up to receive newsletters gets a type of content that best appeals to them. Furthermore, businesses can reach an even wider audience by turning emails into SMS texts using an email-to-SMS gateway. By combining email with SMS marketing efforts, you can easily communicate with all of your customers no matter where they’re located or what they’re doing. With guaranteed open rates of 98%, text messages are the best way to connect with your customers.
There are countless ways you can take advantage of email newsletters, so the only thing you need to do is choose one that works for you. You can start by sending a welcome email for the first time they subscribe to your newsletter, together with a discount code. This will tempt users to try out your products. Then, you can move on to promotional campaigns, as well as seasonal ads, during the time of the year your product is more likely to be needed by consumers. Last, but not least, you can also recur to a re-engagement campaign, for subscribers that have become inactive over time.
Banner ads
Last, but not least, even though they are becoming less and less popular, banner ads are still effective and pretty inexpensive, so you may want to give them a try. You can find plenty of niched websites that allow for banner advertising, and the costs are usually pretty low. The advantage of advertising on niched websites is that you get access to a much more tailored audience, which can sometimes be pretty hard to connect with otherwise. Think of websites or forums for professionals in a certain domain that relates to your product. This is where you want to go for a banner ad campaign.
Banner ads can be targeted to specific demographics, to ensure that the audience you are reaching are the most likely to click on the ad once they see it. This allows for better customization and a potentially bigger ROI.
When choosing the best advertising strategy fort tour company, there is a lot you need to consider. Costs, campaign duration, as well as the type of audience you are planning to reach are just some of the things you need to keep in mind. If you put together a plan and determine all of these variables, you will be able to decide if pop ads, banners, email campaigns or PPC advertising are the best type of strategy for increasing your brand’s visibility.
Do Not Forget To Check Competitors’ Strategy
It is a very important step that many companies often skip. Take time to investigate your main competitors’ strategy and create the plan of your own advertising.
1. At first, find out your competition by Google search with certain keywords.
2.Investigate their websites (look for some pop-ups, social media links, partners and so on.
3. Use Spokeo reverse phone lookup or email search to find out hidden social media profiles.
4. After the phone number search, investigate all their social media profiles.
5. Take notes.
You can take some ideas of advertising from your competitors (of course if their strategy is useful and bring traffic). Also, you can find out some mistakes and completely useless strategies and avoid them in your business.
Author bio:
Maguire Haigh is a marketing manager for Spokeo. He is interested in the latest technology trends, marketing strategies and business development. He also prefers traveling, exploring the world and meeting new people. Maguire has great experience in creating and editing articles on different topics.